Oday Khatib at age 15, in 2005, with Ramzi Aburedwan, founder of Al Kamandjati music school. Photo by Celine Dagher.

By Sandy Tolan, Anan Abu-Shanab, and Eman Musleh — On Wednesday, April 10, Oday Khatib’s stone-throwing trial was postponed. Again. The Palestinian singer walked into Israeli military court and stood ready, for the third time, to face his accuser at Ofer prison near Ramallah. But the accuser, an Israeli soldier, didn’t show up. So says Oday’s father, Jihad Khatib, according to my colleague, Anan Abu-Shanab. Oday, 22, the rising star singer whose arrest and incarceration by the Israeli occupying authorities has set off waves of worry and musical witness in Europe and Palestine, stands accused of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, who arrested him while chasing a group of kids on March 19. The penalty for such an offense, under Section 212 of Israeli Military Order 1651, is ten years in prison.

The law is so sweeping that Oday could have received the same sentence had he thrown a single stone at a road sign.

Interviews with Oday’s parents by Anan and our colleague Eman Musleh indicate their son is in good spirits, enjoying camaraderie with his fellow prisoners, if not the prison food and cold nights. He has requested long underwear from his family. Oday’s father, in his conversation with Anan, described Oday as generally “happy, comfortable, and not worried at all.” Anan reports: “Oday’s father says that everyone in the prison is happy with Oday, he is friendly with everyone, even the soldiers are very respectful and treat him well, because of that.”

One reason for Oday to be optimistic could be that, according to Oday’s father, the judge said that if the prosecution does not produce evidence by the next court date – April 17th – Oday will be set free. This would be an exception; 399 of every 400 cases in Israeli military courts results in conviction. For that reason, the optimism is muted.

Oday’s mother, for her part, remains worried – so worried that she cannot bring herself to go to the court. Oday is the youngest of her five sons; the one who was always the smallest; the one whose powerful high child’s soprano voice captivated the entire refugee camp, and later, throngs of astonished concert-goers in France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Norway, Lebanon, Dubai, Jerusalem and Ramallah. She admits that Oday is the favorite of her sons. “He is the closest to me,” she said. “He’s so soulful and compassionate.”

When Oday was arrested, his mother was about to embark on the Umrah Muslim pilgramage in Saudi Arabia. “I was praying for him, asking God to release him,” she said. She only got a chance to speak to Oday a few days ago, and when she heard his voice on a cell phone from the prison, she burst into tears. “But after he started talking to me, and telling me to calm down and saying everything is fine with him, I stopped crying just because of his great spirits.”

A few days ago, Oday’s former voice teacher, the British mezzo-soprano Julia Katarina, wrote that she hoped Oday was singing in prison to keep himself sane. The interviews with Oday’s parents reveal this is precisely what he’s doing – so much so that other prisoners are competing to be his cellmate.

“He sings in the prison, and everyone listens to him,” says Oday’s mom. Added his father: “He is singing the songs he first sang, the songs that he sang for his brothers when they were in prison and when he first started singing.”

Among those songs is Oday’s signature ballad, Ghareeb, or The Stranger. Another, roughly translated, is called “Darkness of the Prison.” (Listen to a Youtube version here.)

Oh, darkness of the prison,

Settle down

We relish the darkness

For nothing comes after night

Except a transcendent, glorious dawn

Oday is only one of more than 4,700 Palestinians in Israeli military detention. Many of their families go through precisely what Oday’s family is facing. But for Oday, whose voice has transported thousands of people who can’t even understand his words, there are many more people watching and waiting to see what will happen in the military court on April 17.

It was a rare, bold gesture by an Israeli toward the people of Iran: Daniel Barenboim, the famed conductor and co-founder, with Edward Said, of the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, made plans to bring the orchestra of the Berlin State Opera, which he directs, to perform a concert in Teheran. Barenboim, who features prominently in my new book, #Childrenofthestone, has not shied away from courageous personal gestures. Once, upon receiving the Wolf Prize for the Arts by Israel's Ministry of Education, he used the occasion to denounce Israel's occupation. Later, he accepted Palestinian citizenship. He is perhaps the only person to hold dual Israeli and Palestinian passports.

Predictably, the hard right in Israel (which is more and more the center), attacked Maestro Barenboim for daring to try to play music in Iran, accusing him of aiding and abetting the "delegitimization" campaign against Israel. Undaunted, he went forward with his plans. But then he ran into another group of hardliners -- the Iranian kind. They prevailed, and Barenboim was denied entry into Iran. Thus did hardliners in Israel and Iran (not to mention in the U.S. congress) effectively join hands in their successful bid to ruin a chance for soaring cultural diplomacy. Imagine if Barenboim had been allowed in on his Palestinian passport. Either way - a genuine opportunity lost. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4542619.ece

Perhaps the most disturbing cost of the #irandeal lies not in the concessions that US and European negotiators allegedly made, but in the sharply increased impunity given Israel in the land-seizing and violence it visits on Palestinians under #occupation. In recent weeks during the Obama administration's fierce lobbying for the deal, the president and others have sought to assure certain Israel supporters that "sometimes even families argue." Clearly the administration doesn't want to "expend more political capital," in the Beltway lexicon, challenging Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

Hence the unintended consequences of the #irandeal: An even freer hand for Israel's land-grabbing policies, and to advocate for greater violence against stone-throwing protestors. And much of this facilitated by the U.S., with "increased US military, intelligence, and security cooperation with Israel to their highest levels ever," as promised by John Kerry.

Already the stone-throwing Palestinian protestors, some as young as 14, face up to 20 years in prison. Now the prime minister of Israel suggests he will implement a policy to give soldiers a free hand to shoot those protestors to death.

Stand up to them by reducing the obscene amount of money, military materials and logistical support we provide?
Israel is not sensitive to international condemnation concerning these actions.
What actions can we take?

Jimmy Carter has come to the conclusion that many of us who have traveled to Palestine for many years have also determined: Israel is not interested in a two-state solution. The reality on the ground is one state -- some with rights, others without. Netanyahu, says the former president, "does not now and has never sincerely believed in a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine,” and accused him of deciding "early on to adopt a one-state solution, but without giving them [the Palestinians] equal rights."
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.671056

Sharing this wonderful review of #childrenofthestone, just published, in The Journal of Music (Ireland): "Readers of this magisterial book can make up their own minds, as Tolan presents every side of the argument sympathetically. Children of the Stone is both novelistic and scholarly... Those seeking a human interest story will find the book inspiring; simultaneously and effortlessly they will absorb a crash course in Israeli/Palestinian history, a history that involves all of us because of our governments’ failure to act decisively in the interests of #peace and #justice."
Correction: This post had earlier characterized "The Journal of Music" as a UK-based publication in error.

Friday's horrific arson attack on a Palestinian home by suspected Israeli extremists, in which an 18-month-old Palestinian toddler was burned to death, was, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, "a terrorist crime." What he did not say was that the attack on the Dawabshe f…

Sandy Tolan reports and comments frequently about Palestine and Israel. He is the author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East (2006, Bloomsbury), which has earned numerous honors and has been published in five languages. He writes frequently for Salon, the Christian Science Monitor and Al-Jazeera English. Sandy and colleagues are currently at work on a 12-part series on global food security and hunger for the U.S. public radio program, Marketplace. Sandy is associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC in Los Angeles.